documentation/faq/help

Oh, YesCT, I have SO MANY questions right now, it's hard to organize them...

My first questions, would be:
Where are all the places I need to go in the admin area to configure this module?
And what do all the settings mean?
Do I need to do anything to settings for Gmap module to make it all work?

I'm incorporating Location module into an Event content type.

I also have the following 'how to' questions:
- I'd like the postal code, that's entered in the form, to create the location in the gmap. (Postal code will mostly be in UK)
- I'd like to not see any longditude or latitude numbers (they mean nothing to my users)
- I'd like the 'See Map: Google Maps' link to say 'See map' only.
- I'd like the option to display the map on the Event node.

I have worked out, there are many places where configuration and settings need to be made, to get module features to be available. More, I think, than are mentioned in the INSTALL.txt that comes with the module.

I found more answers at the Location documentation page, that you might use in documentation improvements
(DocMartin gives some vital settings information in comments, ie - max number of locations in locative information settings needs to be more than 0).
http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/location#comment-1319972

I will continue to look for answers and add them when found. Thanks for working on this.

An ANSWER to: 'How to hide map coordinates from node display'

To stop showing the degrees of lat. and long. map coordinates...

In Administer > Content management > Content types > [your node type]... edit (admin/content/node-type/[your node type])

Locative information... Display settings...

Hide fields from display: Check 'Coordinates'

+1 A documentation thread is a brilliant idea.

I have stumbled on these interesting solutions for adding a map to a node view which should be documented node view gmap: themeing fix of which #18 add block to node template makes a part of a theming topic.

[edit] More information on placing blocks in many places http://drupal.org/node/26502

Who is eager to start rolling advanced help patches for these?

Get lat and lon values of CCK Location field has some documentable information about retrieving the cck fields.

How do I display a GMAP for a Location CCK field ? Many tips and tricks to review for documentation.

Thanx to SeanBannister: Enable map in node view with location_cck display field settings

Some basics the documentation needs to cover:
(and this is assuming I have understood the module correctly)

1. Location module alone does nothing: you need either node location, user loction, location CCK (any others?) to actually begin to do stuff
2. Locations are not nodes, they are their own entity in the database. (This is not immediately obvious. This means -- I assume? -- that the location CCK field merely points to a location rather than holding the data itself.)
3. what's this about? admin/settings/location/geocoding

1. node locations, location CCK and user locations
These are the modules used to attach locations, a collection of location fields, to either a node or a user. Locations are groups of fields like; Street, City, State/Province, Postal code, Country, Province, GPS Coordinates and even a map (if you install the gmap module) defining locations. You can attach one or many locations to either a node or a user through the functionality enabled by these modules. User locations module allows your site users to define their locations on their accounts. This user location opens a treasure chest of possibilities to interact with content, physically assigned their own locations, in your vicinity.
Node locations, a legacy module from drupal past, and location_cck, the new kid on the block, go by different ways and means to accomplish the same thing, attach locations to nodes.

2. Locations are not nodes.
Indeed they can be seen as their own entities which are stored in the location table and each in turn linked to other drupal entities through the location_instance table. The modules each attempt to enable a user interface to add or edit and display the location data but it is location module who supply them with the form to capture the data with, handles the storing of the data and even exposes the stored fields to views. Location entity if I may, is nothing more than a location id (lid) attached to the unique id (nid,uid) of another entity through the wizardry employed by the location module.
User locations we already mentioned attaches to a user account form, node locations does a similar trick to node edit forms, not much different to the familiar Menu settings, Book outline or Publishing options we love and know. Location cck turns the whole location capture form inclusive of map and all the bells and whistles into a single cck field which can be configured and added to content types.

3. Geocoding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocoding
Geocoding is the process of finding associated geographic coordinates (often expressed as latitude and longitude) from other geographic data, such as street addresses, or zip/postal codes.

Once you have the latitude and longitude you can plot the coordinates on a map.
When using location with the gmap module and you save a node with an address filled in, the settings configured for the selected country (admin/settings/location/geocoding) will be used to retrieve the lat and long and plot the result on the map automagically. If this is a little too much voodoo for you then try the QuickGeocode module which provides you with a button to position the map through ajax.

Google already has support for most of the countries listed on the geocoding options settings page but they are hard coded in geocoding/google.inc. Download and apply the patch from #584014-11: RTBC auto load geocode country list to automatically retrieve the list from google and enable all the supported countries, most of which are currently marked "None supported.", ready for you to start your own personal maps.google or whatever else you can fathom.

After applying a patch and testing the functionality remember to return to the issue with your findings positive and negative. Only through your support and feedback will we be able to improve this software and turn all the voodoo into I can do.

Thanks for the reply!
I'll see if I can incorporate some of that into the documentation pages.

Though:

> location_cck, the new kid on the block

... which doesn't really work far as I can make out -- no data is supplied to Views.

Location cck data in views

Not a mundane task at all, dragonwize gives a brief explanation with a screenshot over here #383244-16: location_cck back compat and views support. You don't have to install the patch to make it work, it seems the latest dev release works the same.

There are two ways to get the fields to display, by using a location type view or by using a node type view with a Content: Location relationship and configuring every Location field to use the Location relationship. The first option is easy if you don't try and get any other details like Node: title to display as the location fields will all show but the others are blank. The complete opposite to what happens in node type views with the location fields, without the relationship configured, coming up blank.

There is another way! I prefer easy and simple but works well...

The patch at #391160-44: CCK/Views: location_instance fix fixes the location_instance table to add the node relationships to the location_cck entries which make the views work straight out of the box. Until now exclusively reserved for location_node, allows location_cck to use the standard views configuration supplied by location module instead of reinventing the wheel and taking the long way around. This also means that location_node and location_cck will have some serious conflicts.

Installing both modules will result in duplicate locations displayed in node teaser or full views and a whole lot of brokenness if you attempt using both on the same node. There is a patch to force location_node to play nice and avoid content types with location_cck fields if you really really really want to run both.

But why make the effort I ask, do we actually need two modules with similar functionality? This is not a new debate, these discussions have been going on since the inception of location_cck I gather.

Let us know if you had success!

How to correct localisation that has been set up in location.*.inc?

I'd like documentation on how to alter any files/functions to make the module show UK counties (up to date) in the province field. I have a list to insert. I don't know whatall the abbreviations are for.

I'd rather not hack the module.

There's discussion going on here: http://drupal.org/node/326665

not critical!

Closing old D6 issues as D6 is end of life